Adding eSATA to an Acer Aspire One (tnkgrl)

This time around, it’s a really major mod/upgrade, but it wasn’t as difficult as some mods. She’s added an external Serial ATA (eSATA) connection to her Aspire One. Obviously this invalidates your warranty.

Note that her Aspire One is the Solid State Drive/SSD/SSD version which uses a ZIF connector (which allows for 1.8″ PATA hard drives). This leaves an unused SATA interface inside the Aspire One.

Using an eSATA socket from a PCI-slot bracket, and some shielded cable (it must be shielded), she was able to fairly easily connect the onboard SATA connection to an eSATA socket. The real work was in finding a place for the eSATA socket to be mounted, without it obstructing anything else. She mounted it above the Secure Digital (SD) slot on the left side of the Aspire One.

In the video, you can see her clever mod that allows you to use the WiFi switch to turn on/off the 3G mobile broadband as well (see part 3 of her modding series).